Permanent safety barriers along traffic thoroughfares are well-known and commonplace to prevent vehicles from leaving the roadway or shoulder area in the event of an accident or loss of operator control of a vehicle, particularly at locations where an area adjacent to the thoroughfare may be deemed particularly dangerous, such as where the roadway may be significantly elevated above the surrounding grade or on bridges over water. Such barriers are generally metal and cable constructions which are firmly anchored to the earth or integrally formed with the roadway structure such as a bridge or overpass. In recent years, construction of roads and other areas where vehicles, pedestrians or animals may be present has led to the development and deployment of portable barriers (generally formed in segments of six to twelve foot length of cast reinforced concrete or as plastic shells which can be filled with water; the latter type providing the additional benefit of impact energy dissipation) that can similarly restrain movement of vehicles, people or animals into undesired or dangerous areas by virtue of their substantial weight even when deployed as stand-alone structures with no anchorage but which (by virtue of their lack of anchorage) can be moved and placed, at will, using fairly commonplace and generally available machinery such as a truck-mounted hoist, fork lift or so-called front-end loader (or even manually when of the water filled type when the water is drained therefrom). Such portable barriers are generally shaped to deflect impacts from vehicles (and resist being climbed by pedestrians or animals) by being formed with a progressively tapered shape in the vertical direction and are sometimes referred to as “Jersey walls” or “Jersey barriers”.
However, when deployed as stand-alone structures without being anchored in place, such barriers or individual segments or sections thereof can be overturned or moved by a sufficient lateral force or impact that overcomes their stability due to their weight or their frictional engagement with the ground or pavement on which they are deployed. On the other hand, if anchorage is provided for the barriers such as bolting the barriers to each other or to anchors in the ground or pavement, presenting substantial material and labor costs, portability is compromised since the anchorage must be removed before the barrier can be moved. Further, such anchorage causes a trade-off between the labor involved to provide and remove the anchorage, including the collection and storage of relatively small parts such as bolts, washers, nuts and plates, and the level of impact resistance that the barriers can provide or withstand. In many cases, even when the anchorage is elaborate and provides substantial additional strength (and corresponding level of difficulty and cost of installation and removal), that level of strength will not be commensurate with the level of protection which is deemed desirable in view of the level of danger contemplated should the barrier fail to remain stationary. Such a circumstance where movement of a barrier might prove catastrophic is, for example, that of a parapet of a bridge over a body or water or at a substantial height above surrounding terrain where movement of a barrier by only a short distance could allow a vehicle to leave the roadway. Nevertheless, a demand remains for easily portable barriers even for such critical applications.